In the days ahead of an antitrust trial he was trying to avoid, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered $1 billion to the Federal Trade Commission — up from $450 million — to settle the case that centered on Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The FTC, however, was seeking $30 billion and wouldn’t take anything less than $18 billion and a consent decree, the Journal reported.
In the negotiations to end the case, Zuckerberg told FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson that he was confident that President Donald Trump would support him with the FTC, the Journal reported. Further, Zuckerberg had been pressing Trump to intervene in the monopoly lawsuit, according to the report.
Instead, the trial kicked off Monday with Zuckerberg testifying for four hours, and he was back on the witness stand again Tuesday to defend against the FTC’s accusations that he bought Instagram for $1 billion in order to “neutralize” a competitor.
“Mark bought his way out of competing, so I’m not surprised that he thinks he can buy his way out of law enforcement, too,” former FTC Chair Lina Khan told the Journal. “His proposed remedy, like his market strategy, is: ‘let my illegal monopoly keep monopolizing.’”
White House aides told the Journal that Zuckerberg had been “relentless” in his pursuit to have Trump intervene on his behalf, going to the White House three times this year and donating $1 million to his inauguration.